BEING NEEDED

Mattering — the sense that we are significant to others — is a core human need. It has three dimensions: being noticed, being important to someone, and being relied upon. Schools invest heavily in the first two, but reliance is the one most often left to chance.

Consider a student thriving by most measures: strong grades, included in everything, praised by her teachers, and able to describe her goals clearly. She has strong self-esteem, feels she belongs, and still experiences distress - why? Her life focuses on earning future opportunities rather than engaging in activities where others rely on her in the present. In short, the lack of evidence that she makes a difference and is significant to others makes her feel like she doesn’t matter.

While we cannot directly hand a student a sense of mattering, we can create the conditions. In this course, we will examine how mattering works, why it has become scarce in schools, and what educators can do about it.

By exploring practices such as designing for genuine responsibility, giving recognition that names a specific contribution, protecting time for reflection, and reading emotions as diagnostic signals, we will explore how to make contributions both possible and visible, and we will collaborate to design schools where young people can build evidence that their lives matter now.